Bruyneel leaves RadioShack team

Armstrong's former manager named leader of doping program

GENEVA -- Lance Armstrong's former manager Johan Bruyneel left the RadioShack-Nissan team Friday after he was singled out as a central figure in the former Tour de France champion's doping program.

The RadioShack-Nissan team said the decision was by "mutual agreement," adding Bruyneel "can no longer direct the team in an efficient and comfortable way."

"His departure is desirable to ensure the serenity and cohesiveness within the team," it said in a statement.

Bruyneel said he was leaving to "concentrate on my defense," having chosen an arbitration hearing to fight charges leveled by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Armstrong was banned from Olympic sports for life by USADA and stripped of his seven Tour titles after choosing in August not to contest the allegations, including that he used and supplied banned drugs.

Friday's announcement came two days after USADA's damning report on Armstrong exposed the doping program in the U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams that Bruyneel managed when Armstrong rode to seven straight Tour de France victories from 1999-2005.

"In light of these testimonies, both parties feel it is necessary to make this decision," RadioShack said. Its sponsors include longtime Armstrong backers Nike, Trek, Oakley and Livestrong.

Bruyneel, who was general manager of the Luxembourg-based team, now has his own legal battle with USADA. The agency placed him at the heart of doping programs for Armstrong's teams through the rider's second retirement in 2010.

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"I am surprised and extremely disappointed that USADA released information in the public domain relating to their pending case against me before I had been given any opportunity to review the evidence and provide my defense against it," Bruyneel said.

"I still hope to be able to defend myself in a forum free from bias, although I now fear that USADA's calculated action may have irreversibly prejudiced my case," he said in a statement on his personal website.

Armstrong and Bruyneel were an unbreakable partnership for years, with Armstrong widely crediting the Belgian for helping him achieve his Tour successes on a U.S. Postal Service team that dominated cycling's showcase race.

Armstrong rode his final Tour in 2010 under Bruyneel's leadership, with the new RadioShack team that Armstrong co-owned. Bruyneel also helped Spaniard Alberto Contador win the 2007 Tour for the Discovery team and worked with both Armstrong and Contador on the 2009 Tour, which Contador also won.

USADA's dossier pinpointed Bruyneel as the focal point of massive doping throughout the USPS team's heyday.

No winner for past Tours

The Tour de France will have no official winner for the seven races from 1999-2005 if Lance Armstrong is stripped of his victories by the International Cycling Union.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Tour director Christian Prudhomme called the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's report on Armstrong "damning." It raises doubts, he said, about "a system and an era."

Tour officials are still waiting on the UCI's decision on whether to go along with USADA's decision to ban Armstrong for life and erase his racing results. A spokesman for the sport's governing body, Enrico Carpani, said it was "too early to say" what would happen. The UCI must decide by the end of the month whether to appeal USADA's ruling.

UCI President Pat McQuaid declined to comment on USADA's report but defended his organization's efforts to catch drug cheats.

If Armstrong's Tour victories are not awarded to other riders, that would leave a gaping seven-year black hole in Tour de France record books. It would also mark a shift in how Tour organizers treated similar cases in the past.

When Alberto Contador was stripped of his 2010 Tour victory for a doping violation, organizers held a ceremony to award the race winner's yellow jersey to Luxembourg's Andy Schleck. In 2006, Oscar Pereiro was awarded the victory and a place in the record books after the doping disqualification of American rider Floyd Landis.

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